The lowest quotes I got start at $275sf so yours is much lower. 

If you close a credit card with no balance, all you're accomplishing is lowering your borrowing power by whatever the credit limit was.

You are buying a cheaper property with more down, I just assume your costs for PITI would be lower than mine.

We showed the bank our plan to improve the NOI by doing those things and got them to lower the down payment by 5%.

Lower expenses?  

Part of me thinks a cheap solution could be skim coating the wood with some form of product to get it a bit smoother and then paint with a lower sheen.

As far as expenses, I budget 8.3% for vacancy so that I have a month reserve by the end of the lease, then lower it if the tenant renews for another year.

Of course this is obvious as Unemployment Rises we have lower Economic Activities.THEREFORE, if One were to look into UE and Recession, you don't look at when UnEmployment Rates are RISING, you look at when it is FALLING if you are interested in when the next recession will hit.How does that help us?

I am looking at getting an FHA or VA loan to fund the property with the low to no money down financing (since most lower end homes will be 300+K, so that means 60+k down payment).

Now in our market of PDX from what a bigger PM told me that only manages apartments he said some of the new construction does have stress IE by the time they started them and with cost rises in labor and materials .. the rents are not hitting performa and or over build and rents have to be lowered to fill the units both stressing the owners .